Welcome to my 24th newsletter! 24! That means the newsletter’s been going for a whole 2 years already! And wow, it’s already December too, how about that!

In Brief:

A while ago I announced the arrival of my new shop website (christinaengela.net), but alas it seems there were a few issues with the e-commerce payment system, and while I merrily went forth and promoted the heck out of my titles, I quickly became puzzled over the next month or so by the number of abandoned carts (nearly 300!) in my stats – and zero actual sales!

As you could well imagine, this was quite a disappointment to me, and while I lingered under the impression that my website had been set up correctly and that PayPal was working (because I’d done a few test purchases on my own, and that seemed to work fine) I began to ask myself a number of unhappy questions. Why were there so many abandoned carts? Why did people not click through and buy anything? Didn’t they like my books? Was it something I said? WHY???

So I took a step back for a week or two, and then yesterday I took another look under the hood, and asked a couple of Facebook friends to check things out on the purchase links for me. As it turned out, several of the plugins were clashing with each other, which screwed up the works on the PayPal end, giving interested would-be buyers an error message! Talk about disappointing!

For this I humbly apologize. You see, this wasn’t the first website I’d set up using the WordPress platform – but it was the first ever that I’d had to set up e-commerce solutions on! Mistakes were inevitable.

Well, all that appears to be sorted now, as people have started buying from the website via PayPal, with a great deal fewer abandoned carts during the interceding night!

The new Shop page now appears to be fully functional, providing free and paid eBooks for download in PDF format. If you’ve had a look at the new site, you might notice I’ve set the prices for these same eBooks (which you can still buy as epub files from places like Lulu and others) considerably lower there than wherever else they are available, averaging around $2. The reason for this is overhead costs.

As I explained previously, other service providers that distribute and sell my books take a cut from the proceeds – and more often than not, this is an unkind, even cruel cut! This is exactly why I set up my own shop website – so I can sell my books direct and get the most out of them. After all, we writers write for the love of it, but we publish for the recognition – both socially and economically 😉

Also, under related news, I recently announced that I was leaving Amazon and would no longer be selling through that channel. You can read here why in detail, but I can tell you it’s mainly related to their greed and the shameless way they rip authors off.

I’m sure some of you are wondering when I’ll be putting out more titles in the Galaxii, Quantum or Panic series – and to be honest, I am too! I’ve been rather busy lately, first with the setting up of the new website, marketing my existing titles (a full-time job) and also I’ve been busy with a few reading and editing gigs. On the home front I’ve been doing quite a lot of DIYing (LOL!) and have since about July-August put in the first section of our new attic floor, painted and refurbished the guest room, and built a curious combination greenhouse and wood workshop in the back garden! So you see, I’se been a’busy Jemima!

That said, I’m keen and itching to carry on working on “Where Darkness Softly Treads” (book 5 in Galaxii), “Panic #4” and the next three titles in Quantum – “Moon Jockeys”, “Underground Movement” (novelettes) and “Fortitude” (book 7). So many stories, so little time!

On top of all that, I still have to execute the planned update of the Quantum Series covers and format sizes (print version) which should occur sometime in January, if not sooner!

In August, I was very proud to present my very first short animated film: “Bang! Splat!“: A children’s story …for adults! “Bang! Splat!” is based on “Innocent Minds“, and features some of the characters from my Quantum Series of novels – namely, Dr. Gleichstein and his little dog Vluffy. Dr. Gleichstein is a quantum physicist – and as everyone knows by now, quantum physics is a little like ordinary physics, except that you spend a little more time looking for your eyebrows.

“Deanna is a quaint planet, home to odd-ball quantum physicist Dr. Gleichstein and his little dog Vluffy… and a few uninvited guests.

The Herr Doktor and Vluffy are faced with quite a conundrum – even bigger than the Doktor regularly losing his eyebrows. Their home is overrun by mutant two-headed cockroaches – and not even a hammer will stop them! However will they solve this problem?”

On 14 August I announced the release of “Christina Engela’s Book of Candid Quotes“, a free downloadable ebook containing a large number of quotes. Many of these come from my activism days when I wrote and shared articles almost daily to address various social injustices on local and international stages. I think they’re pretty good, so I decided to share them with the world. I hope you enjoy them, find something thought provoking, and share it as well.

Although most titles listed are available in paperback and/or ebook formats through most online retailers internationally, Christina prefers readers make their purchases via her website, or via Lulu. This is because while all retailers charge the same price to YOU the reader, Lulu gives the author the largest portion of the proceeds from your purchase (her website gives it ALL) – which is really, really important if you’re the author! 🙂

In Closing

Well, that’s all for this time, folks! 🙂 It’s December time, and many of you will be taking a break, going away on holiday and so on. I hope you all have a nice rest and get to spend time with your loved ones. Happy everything, and we’ll chat again sometime in the new year!

Thanks again for all your support, friendship and interaction through the last year! Until next time, keep reading!